I’m not much of a sports fan. I liked the NBA until the Sonics left Seattle and then I vowed to never watch a game again. Plus, it just seems like a selfish, egotistical league now. I do enjoy baseball, but I don’t really follow it too closely. Maybe in spurts, but almost never for a full season. I think I might like to play in some sort of fantasy league though. Making picks and having something riding on it would probably keep my interest a little longer. Wait, isn’t that what gambling is?

Even though I’m in the minority of men who don’t actually follow sports, I do have something to fill that space where it should be: awards season in Hollywood. When it gets to be the end of the year and I know that all these shows are coming up I start to get excited. And I do my best to keep an eye on all of them: The Gotham awards, BAFTA, and a bunch of others. None, of course, get as much attention as the Oscars. That’s kind of like the Super Bowl of awards season. And like fantasy football, it gives me a chance to get into a pool or two and make my picks.

Every year I do pretty well picking Oscar winners. I’m never dead on, but there are so many and always an upset or two, so while I might miss the mark once in a while, it’s always interesting to see something come from out of left field and take home a statue. Because I have a few minutes, I’ll make my picks for this year now. And then the one or two people who ever come across this blog can maybe tell me their picks if they’re at all interested.

Here goes:

Best Motion Picture: The King’s Speech
Best Actor: Colin Firth
Best Actress: Natalie Portman
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (Though Hailey Steinfeld is also standing out in my mind)
Best Director: David Fincher
Best Original Screenplay: The King’s Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Language Film: Biutiful
Best Cinematography: The Social Network
Best Editing: Black Swan
Best Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland
Best Costume Design: True Grit
Best Score: Trent Reznor/The Social Network
Best Song: Randy Newman/Toy Story 3
Best Sound Mixing: Inception
Best Sound Editing: Tron: Legacy
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Documentary, Features: Exit Through the Gift Shop

I haven’t seen any of the short films or docs (though I plan to next week), so I won’t list those yet. If I don’t get to see any of them I’ll throw a dart and see where it lands.

I should mention, too, that I really like both James Franco and Anne Hathaway, so I’m curious to see how well they do. I think Franco will also be writing the show as it goes and and running two of the cameras.

That’s it. We’ll find out how close I get in a week. What are your picks?